RELIABILITY OF ERROR CORRECTING CODES ON WIRELESS INFORMATION NETWORKS
Error correcting codes are well known techniques for improving bit error rate (BER) performance in digital communication systems and are particularly important in wireless information networks to help establish reliable communication links. This paper examines the effect of coder/decoder circuitry failures on the overall communication system performance. A system analysis of the error correction coding scheme performance must include an evaluation of the reliability of the coder/decoder circuitry because their failures also serve as a source of undetected errors. The parity bit code, Hamming single error correcting and detecting code, and the Reed–Solomon code are included in the study. Results reveal that for applications as described in the text that require low bit error rate and operate at low data rates, the reliability of the coding circuitry can play a significant role in determining overall system performance. In fact, for such error and data rates, a simpler coding scheme with higher circuit reliability may actually be more beneficial than a more complex coding scheme with enhanced error correcting ability but with a higher chip failure rate.